Well this is now the fourth Sunday in Advent. We have been using some of the Psalms to help us think about the meaning and the significance of the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this morning we are going to look together at Psalm 132. Psalm 132. Do take your Bibles in hand and turn with me please; if you are using a church Bible you can find that on page 519 of our church Bibles. Psalm 132.
This psalm belongs in a collection of psalms that begin in Psalm 120, end in Psalm 134, all bearing the same superscription. They’re called “Psalms of Ascent.” Psalms for going up; going up, that is, ascending up to Jerusalem on one of the great pilgrim festivals of the ancient Israelite liturgical calendar. Psalm 132 has the distinction of being the longest of the Psalms of Ascent, roughly twice as long as most of the psalms in the collection. And that, I think, is meant to make us pay particular attention to it. There is some significant space given to developing its themes. A quick glance at the psalm will demonstrate there are two main sections. Verses 1 through 10 are dominated with the oath that David makes to build a temple for God. And verses 11 through 18 are dominated by the oath that God makes to David that one of his sons would reign on His throne forever. The theme of the first half of the psalm is really focused on the place where God’s presence will rest. The place where God’s presence will rest. And the theme of the second half of the psalm – the person through whom God’s promises will be realized. The person through whom God’s promises will be realized.
Our project this morning is to see how both themes in both parts of this psalm really teach us about the meaning and significance of Christ’s first coming. Why the baby was born of a virgin and laid in a manger and they called His name Jesus. Both sections of the psalm point us there. Before we get to all of that, we need to pause and pray and then we’ll read the passage together. So let’s bow our heads as we ask for the Lord to help us. Let us pray.
We confess together, O Lord, that Your Word is living and active, sharper than a double-edged sword, and penetrates to the division of bone and marrow, soul and spirit. It lays bare the secrets of our hearts before the eyes of You with whom we have to do. And so now we pray, Abba Father, would You wield the sword of the Spirit in our hearts to wound and to heal, to show us our sin and need of a Savior, and to bring us again back to the One whom You have provided, the Lord Jesus Christ, who answers the great need of our hearts. Do that, we pray, through this portion of Your Word, in Jesus’ name, amen.
Psalm 132. This is the Word of Almighty God:
“A Song of Ascents.
Remember, O Lord, in David’s favor, all the hardships he endured, how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, ‘I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.’
Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar. ‘Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!’
Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints shout for joy. For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.
The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: ‘One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne.’
For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: ‘This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine.’”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken to us in His holy, inerrant Word.
“I’ll be home for Christmas. You can plan on me. Please have snow and mistletoe and presents by the tree. Christmas Eve will find me, where the lovelight gleams. I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” Bing Crosby. You’ve got to love it. Some Christmas crooners. I’m a sucker for a ratpack; Christmas crooners like that, I don’t know about you. Actually, I think that song in particular continues to resonate with us because it’s a song about going home, a song about being at home. And we often feel the need to be in our place, in our home, surrounded by our people at Christmastime.
And actually I think that’s a sentiment the ancient Hebrews, the Israelites, would have understood something of really rather well. In fact, a bit like longing for home that fills so many of our songs at Christmas, our text this morning, Psalm 132, is a song for the holidays of ancient Israel. Only here, God’s people are not longing for their own home; they are longing, they are yearning for God’s home, we might say; for the place where God’s presence is said to dwell. And we get a sense in this pilgrim song, as we do in all the pilgrim songs, that the people are going up to Jerusalem to worship in the conviction that actually their deepest place of belonging, their own true spiritual home, can only be found here in fellowship with the living God in the place that He has chosen.
The Place Where God’s Presence Will Rest
And so that’s the first thing I want us to consider together as we look at this psalm, in the first half of this psalm, verses 1 through 10, I want us to think about the place where God’s presence will rest. The place where God’s presence will rest. Now we know, don’t we, that God is everywhere and nothing can contain Him. And the Scriptures are abundantly clear in their testimony to that fact. And so David, just a few psalms further forward in the book, Psalm 139 will sing in wonder, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall leave me and Your right hand shall hold me fast.” And David’s own son, King Solomon, after building the temple that David intended to provide for God, the temple is finally complete and at its dedication, 1 Kings 8:27, Solomon declared, “The heaven of heavens cannot contain You, how much less this house.” Or the apostle Paul, echoing Solomon’s words in Acts 7:48, “The Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands.” God does not have a zip code. Right? He is everywhere.
And yet, isn’t it also equally clear in the first half of Psalm 132, that the psalmist is focused on one particular place where God’s presence is said to dwell. You can see that in the vow that David makes in verses 1 through 5. “I will not enter my house or get into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob.” Place is a key word, and it sounds again and again throughout Psalm 132. David is focused on God’s place. Probably, the psalmist is reflecting on the events recorded in the history of 2 Samuel chapter 7 where King David resolved to build a temple for God. He saw that he himself was living in a beautiful adorned palace while God was dwelling, so to speak, in a moveable tent, the tabernacle. It didn’t sit well with David, and he resolved to build Him a temple, a permanent structure in Jerusalem.
Now David knew God doesn’t live inside the tabernacle and he know God would not be contained within any temple that he might build, but he also knew that during this period in salvation history, God had ordained to make His presence known and to make Himself available, especially to His people in this particular place. It was the one plot of ground in all the universe where God had promised to display His glory and meet with His people in His great mercy. And so God is to be known and encountered in a place, a particular place – in the temple in Jerusalem.
But then in verses 6 to 8, I want you to see the psalmist gets even more precise and specific and focused as he talks about the place where God’s presence is to be found. I wonder if you’ve ever played around with Google Earth. You start off with the image of the globe on the screen and then you type in your address and the camera zooms in, doesn’t it, and suddenly there’s the country and the region and then the city and down further to the neighborhood and all the way down to the street level. And as you navigate around, there’s your front door, right there on the screen! It’s amazing. Psalm 132 starts out with David reminiscing, or the psalmist reminiscing on David’s determination to build a temple, a physical temple in the city of Jerusalem for God to dwell in. In verse 13, the psalmist says, “God has chosen Zion,” that is, the city of Jerusalem, “to be his dwelling place.” So it starts out with a city and then zooms in, as it were, to think about the temple in the first five verses.
But then look at verses 6 through 8. He zooms in even more. We can get a little more granular, we might say, about the place where God’s presence resides. “Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar. ‘Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!’ Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.” “We heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar.” What is “it”? Verse 8 says “it” is the ark of God’s might, the ark of the covenant. You may know the ark of the covenant was really just a large wooden box covered in gold. On top of the ark there was a flat platform and it was shaded by the outstretched wings of two statues of cherubim, of angelic beings hiding this flat platform with their wings. The platform was called the mercy seat. It was the place where the high priest would pour sprinkled blood once a year. The whole thing was located in the Holy of Holies in the center of the tabernacle and later in the temple that Solomon would build. And the high priest would go there on the day of atonement and there on the mercy seat he would make atonement for the sins of the people. And this ark in the Old Testament scriptures serves as the special symbol and emblem of the presence of God in the midst of His people, in all His holiness and power, and in His mercy and grace.
So do you see how the psalmist is zooming in further and further? He starts with Zion, the holy city, God’s dwelling place. Then the temple that God will inhabit. And then even more narrowly and specific, verse 8, it’s the ark of the covenant that is the focal point of God’s presence and glory in the world. It is, as verse 7 describes it, God’s footstool, symbolically, His dwelling place, His resting place, the place where the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would make His glory shine and His mercy flow towards His people.
But I wonder if you noticed how the people speak about it in verse 6. Did you see how they speak about it? It’s a little odd. Listen to their language carefully. “We heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar.” It actually sounds like somehow the people have misplaced the ark of the covenant, doesn’t it? And astonishingly when you remember what it stands for, what it means, the ark of the covenant – the presence of God Himself in the midst of His people – that is exactly what has happened. You see, before Solomon built the temple that David had planned, the ark of the covenant and the tent, the tabernacle, moved around Israel from place to place according to the needs of the people. At one point, it came to a place called Kiriath-jearim. It’s the same place verse 6 calls “the fields of Jaar.” And in 1 Samuel 7:2, we’re told that it stayed there for 20 years. Just let that sink in for a minute. A generation went by and after all that time, according to Psalm 132 verse 6, it seems the new generation have largely forgotten about the ark. The great symbol of the presence of God in holiness and grace is essentially missing from the heart of the covenant community and nobody seems to have noticed. And remember, it’s not just a symbol of the presence of God; it’s also the mercy seat. It’s the place where forgiveness and atonement, where sin gets dealt with. And so get this. For 20 years, they seem to have forgotten about their need for forgiveness. For 20 years, they have allowed the atoning work of the high priest largely to go unattended. I think it’s the epitome of spiritual drift, of backsliding. Isn’t it?
Before we move on – this is really just an aside but I think it’s worth noticing the important lesson and challenge there for us – how easily it seems to have happened in Israel. As you look back over the year now almost finished, 2021, or even back over the last two years with all the upheaval of COVID-19, I suspect more than a few of you will have to admit how easily that same pattern of spiritual drift has happened in your own heart and life also. And the thing that I find particularly sobering about this period in Israel’s history, is that when God’s presence is absent from His people it doesn’t come with cataclysms and disasters. That’s not how it happens. His presence was not ripped from their hearts in an act of judgment nor was it abandoned by them in some sudden paroxysm of rebellion. In fact, it seems likely that no one really even noticed it happening, and 20 years went by without the ark of the covenant. And that’s how it happens, as often as not, you know. When God’s presence is withdrawn, people don’t notice. That’s the tragedy. It’s not marked usually by a sudden, dramatic lurch into apostasy or paganism. In fact, it’s usually marked by a careful perpetuation of all the correct outward forms. Of going through all the appropriate motions. There is still a form of godliness, though it denies the power, not really even all that aware that the one thing we need most of all is not the ritual and the words and the rhythms of religion only, but the presence of the living God Himself. That’s what we need. Beware slow, imperceptible drift. Beware, bare formal religion. Beware lest you misplace the ark and lose the presence and blessing of God.
Well finally, mercifully, after 20 years, 1 Chronicles 13 tells us David remembered the ark. Much like the worshippers here in Psalm 132 verse 6 who seem to have woken up and realized they need the presence of God. And so the psalmist says they searched till they found it in the fields of Jaar. And Chronicles tells us David went and fetched the ark and brought it up to Jerusalem at long last amidst great celebration. And if you look at verse 8 you’ll see them all praying now for God to arise and go along with the ark of His might to His resting place. They’re praying that He would fill the tabernacle and now eventually when Solomon builds it, the temple itself with His glory and His mercy and His blessing. It’s a prayer for the restoration and renewal of the presence of God in the place that He has appointed.
The Person Through Whom God’s Promises Will Be Realized
Now we’re going to come back to all of this, but I want you to put a pin in this part of the psalm at this point. We’re going to move on to think about the second half of the psalm. So first of all, the place where God’s presence will rest. We also need to think about the person through whom God’s promises will be realized, because we need to see both of them, both the place and the person, if we are to be in any position to see how Psalm 132 teaches us about Advent and the meaning of Jesus’ first coming and who He is and what He came to do.
So let’s look down now at verses 11 and 12 please. The person through whom God’s promise will be realized. “The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: ‘One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne.’” That is a synopsis really of God’s covenant with David in 2 Samuel chapter 7 where God promised that David’s sons would reign on His throne forever if they kept His covenant and His testimonies and that ultimately one son in particular would reign on God’s throne, David’s throne, as God’s final anointed one. It’s a wonderful promise, just like the provision of the ark of the covenant with the mercy seat where atonement was made was a wonderful provision of God’s mercy and grace. No wonder the people came up to Jerusalem, marching up to Jerusalem at these great pilgrim feasts with high expectations of blessing. And they prayed as they marched along in the words of verses 9 and 10, “Let your priests be clothed with righteousness and your saints shout for joy. For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.” That was their hope as they made their pilgrimage.
And if you look down at verses 13 through 16, I want you to see how God answers their cries with a corresponding promise. “For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: ‘This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy.” Do you see how the things they are asking for God is promising to do? He matches their cries, “Lord, let this be, and this, and this,” with His, “I will, I will, I will.” Do you see that in these two parts of the psalm? It’s a beautiful picture of God’s readiness to hear and answer the cries of His people. That’s how it’s supposed to be when the covenant people of God live under His reign and lordship according to His Word, our cries and God’s provision answer and echo and mirror one another. And so they come to Jerusalem with mounting expectation, don’t they. “God has promised to meet us and bless us. It’s going to be wonderful!” And then they arrive in Jerusalem and the ark is there and the temple is there and the Davidic king is there.
But where is the blessing promised? Where is the presence of God? We know from the histories that very soon, after Solomon built the temple, the Davidic kings, the kings that descend from him, quickly rebel and fall into idolatry and sin and bring the people along with them. Very soon the nation splits into two and very soon those nations are overrun by enemies and taken into exile and Jerusalem is destroyed and the temple torn down and the ark of the covenant is lost forever. Now what becomes of God’s, “I will, I will, I will, I will”?
And the answer to that actually has to do with verses 17 and 18. Would you look there? Everything else in this psalm, all the prayers of the people, they’re longing for the presence of God in His ordained place, all their desires for the blessings of righteousness and joy, all of it hangs on the fulfillment of verses 17 and 18. Look at verses 17 and 18. “There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine.” So from David’s line, one day a particular son will rise. Notice the metaphors that describe Him. First, He is a sprouting horn. It’s an odd image for us, I’ll grant you, but in the ancient near east it was an image of strength and power. Think about a charging rhinoceros. You might notice his bulk as he charges towards you. You might hear him snort in anger. You might see his massive feet churning up the dust as he barrels in your direction. But I guarantee that the main thing you notice is that massive horn aimed at your face. It’s an image, isn’t it, of power and strength. It’s daunting. Unlike all the other kings in their weakness and failure, this king will be mighty. That’s the image.
Secondly, the psalmist says He will be a lamp that God has appointed for His anointed one. There was a lamp, you know, in the temple, in the tabernacle and then in the temple, that was kept burning day and night that symbolized the constant, faithful presence of God. That it is a lamp that is the image of this coming King reminds us that He will guide and lead His people. He is the instrument of illumination and revelation to His people. He will give them light and in His light we will see light.
And then finally in verse 18, notice the contrast that is established. While His enemies are clothed with shame, this King’s crown never grows dull and never loses its luster. It’s the difference between, say, raw iron and pure gold. Iron will rust eventually and tarnish, but pure gold will always shine. It’s really talking about the character of this King. That’s what makes His reign beautiful and glorious. There’s nothing in His behavior or demeanor to tarnish His crown.
Now who is he talking about? Well I’m sure you know the answer to that, of course. He’s talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t he? Jesus is the one who has been given “the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” He is the mighty King who reigns at God’s right hand, the sprouting horn for David. And Jesus is the lamp. He is the true light that gives light to every man that is coming into the world. He is the light of the world, and whoever follows Him will not walk in darkness but have the light of life. And Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords and of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. While His enemies will be clothed with shame, on His head the crown will always shine.
All of that I rather suspect you guessed already. You saw those connections, right, as we read through Psalm 132. Clearly that’s talking about Jesus. Would it surprise you, though, if I told you that the New Testament also thinks about Jesus as the place where God’s presence rests. Clearly Jesus is the person through whom God’s promise is realized, but He’s also the place where God’s presence dwells. For example, Jesus is described as the true temple. John 1:18 is a class place. “The Word became flesh,” John has told us. Jesus is the Word. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The word, “to dwell among us,” is the word, “tabernacle,” the forerunner of the temple, the place where God dwelled in the midst of His people. God dwells in the midst of His people now and forever in the man Christ Jesus, God with us, Immanuel, dwelling in our midst in the baby of Bethlehem.
And Google Earth, remember, can zoom down still further than that. Not just the true temple, but Jesus is the mercy seat. Romans 3:25, “We have redemption in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation.” The word is “hilasterion.” It’s the word for the mercy seat. Jesus is the place where a holy God and wicked sinners may be reconciled through the shedding of blood and atonement can be made. Jesus is the venue and the focal point for pardon.
So look, this is what’s really going on that first Christmas Day. Isn’t it mind blowing? The person in whom God’s promises will all be realized, great David’s greater Son, whom angels and shepherds and wise men worship as Savior and King, He was coming into the world. And in this baby cradled in the arms of the virgin, the final resting place of the presence of God, God available for sinners, dwelling in our midst, to meet with us, to be reconciled to us, had finally come. Not a temple, not a mercy seat, not a wooden box or a stone edifice, but the man, Jesus Christ. From Him, forgiveness for sinners is made available to the ends of the earth. In Him, heaven and earth may be reconciled. In Jesus, God has come amongst us in pursuit of us, as it were. All of that means there is only one place now you ever need to look to get in touch with spiritual reality, only one touching point between heaven and earth, only one location where God comes down to be found and known by you, only one place you can go. This is important, I think, at Christmastime and the holiday season – only one place you can go to deal with your guilty conscience, to deal with your shame and your sin. God came in Jesus Christ to be the mercy seat to be the place where all of it, your burden of guilt, can be lifted and you can be forgiven forever. You must go, you must go to Jesus Christ. He is the person in whom God’s promises are realized. He is the place, as it were, where God’s presence dwells. You must go to Jesus Christ.
When Crosby sang, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” I think it tapped into something really deep inside of us – this longing for our place, this longing for home, never more so than at Christmas. The pilgrims who first sang Psalm 132 were longing for home as well but they knew what we often miss – that that longing can only be met in the place where the presence of God dwells and in the person who brings God’s promises to fulfillment. And now we know too, don’t we, that both are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is God’s dwelling place. He is God’s promised King. God came that day in Bethlehem. God came that He might reconcile you to Himself. Or to put it a little differently, He came to welcome you home, to bring you home, your real home – here in His saving embrace. So in some ways, I really do hope you will be able to say with confidence, whether you are able to be with loved ones this Christmas or not, “I’ll be home for Christmas.” I hope you’ll be able to say that, so long as the home we’re talking about is the true home God has provided for your soul in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s great King and the meeting place between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
Let’s pray together.
Our Father, how we praise You for the Lord Jesus who meets the deepest need of our hearts, the deepest need of our hearts. And sometimes that just gets obscured at Christmas amidst the commercialism of it all, amidst the busyness of it, amidst the mandatory fun while we hide our tears and our sore hearts. Even when we are enjoying the wonders and the beauties and the delights and blessings of being with friends and family and loved ones this time of year, there’s still a longing for more. Your Word reminds us and teaches us that we will never find our rest until our hearts find their rest in You. And so we pray for one another, even as we pray for ourselves. O Lord, bring us to rest entirely on Christ. Bring us, all of us, home today. Bring us to the One in whom forgiveness is to be found, that the burden of our guilt may be lifted. Bring us to know You in a new way, or perhaps for the very first time as we look to Jesus. For we ask all of this in His name, amen.